Browsed byTag: Anime Industry

Reiko Okuyama’s a legend in the anime industry for her artistic achievements and as an icon at the forefront of the fight for women’s rights in this industry. Now that her name’s entering the public discourse again, though, we have to address an uncomfortable topic: gender discrimination within the anime industry is far from over.

Shingo Yamashita was one of the pioneers of the digital animation movement in anime. He made a name for himself drawing stunning, emotionally loaded sequences, and then moved on to become a creative leader as he experimented with directorial duties and the possibilities enabled by new toolsets. Despite being quite busy, he kindly lent us his time to talk about the changing landscape of this industry and its professionals, the world of digital animation, his evolving creative philosophy, and even…

We often highlight interesting animators and directors who just irrupted into anime and are finding success at a young age, but some times we have to focus on the struggle of less fortunate individuals instead. At a time where anime needs the help of new creators more than ever, the working conditions for youngsters who want to join the industry have grown to be so poor that we’re stuck with very high attrition rates and miserable standards. It’s important that…

Much has been speculated about the effect of new mainstream platforms storming this industry, with Netflix in particular being sold as a potential game-changer for anime productions. And yet, despite some obvious changes when it comes to content restrictions, the people who make anime have unequivocally explained that they appreciate no improvement in their poor situation. Let’s try to pay attention to them for once.

Just yesterday it was announced that the third season of Attack on Titan would be broadcast on NHK’s general channel, on paper getting the most mainstream platform TV anime can aspire to. That’s a good opportunity to give some context to the whole situation: what does it mean, NHK’s plans for anime, and how those are affecting titles like the aforementioned titans, Cardcaptor Sakura, March Comes in Like a Lion, and the rest of their very packed 2018 schedule.

With a bit of delay, here’s our seasonal feature looking into the numbers of TV anime: how many key animators and animation directors the new Spring 2017 TV series required, as well as the degree of outsourcing involved. Complete with commentary to contextualize the data as usual, which this time focuses some nasty recent industry trends.

Welcome back to The Pre-Production of Anime, Megax‘s series following the path of an anime production from the inception of the project until it’s ready to be animated. Last time we talked about how a production organizes its writing work, so today it’s finally time to examine the design process and the main roles it entails. Let’s get to it! Part 3: Design Work

Welcome back to megax‘s series “The Pre-Production of Anime”, following the journey anime goes through before coming to fruition. On the first post we mentioned how the initial pitch is used to gather the necessary funds and creators, so now it’s time to actually begin the creative process. How is anime written? Part 2: Scripting

It’s time to answer another batch of anime industry inquiries sent by our supporters. We’ve got interesting questions to address, like what do anime creators do when they take a break from the industry, as well as the contractual relationships between animators/studio and the usage of 2D animation in 3D projects.

Welcome to megax‘s new mini-feature “The Pre-Production of Anime”, where we’ll detail how a production goes from a mere idea to the point where the animation process starts. Much has been written about the actual creative endeavors (including drawing, painting, background art, compositing), but there’s nearly no guides out there talking about what happens beforehand. To address that, we’ll go over every pre-production step to give you a better idea of how an anime is born. Part 1: Planning